On Being White and Supporting Systems

This post has been a long time coming, and I'm going to do my best to keep it fairly concise and to the point. The U.S. has obviously had a lot of turmoil lately in terms of police violence, particularly white officers killing unarmed black males. I wanted to write about the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand jury failed to convict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown to death. Then a cop, who had been declared unfit for duty two years prior, shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio because he was playing with a pellet gun and he "looked older". Then, a cop in Staten Island choked Eric Garner to death--an incident that was not only witnessed, but videotaped--and a grand jury still acquitted him. And these are just the high profile cases making the news recently. Police departments do not keep official counts of civilians killed, nor does the federal government. There are several crowd-sourced attempts to count civilians killed by police, like the ones mentioned in this article. But does it not raise the hairs on the back of your neck, just a little bit, to know that there is no oversight of cops killing people?

The morning after the announcement of the grand jury decision in Ferguson, there were riots. No big shock, right? Here's me putting myself hypothetically in the shoes of someone in that community:

Someone in my community was killed. He may or may not have been in the process of doing something wrong, but either way, he was killed by a man who was in a position of power, who has lived a life of relative privilege, and whose job is to protect. It was a case of the white man's word against the black man's, so of course the white man's won. My community is one of poverty, one where there is no mobility, and one where a black life never has held value for white people or people of privilege, so this outcome brings to the surface generations of tensions. It's not just an issue of "Was Michael Brown breaking the law," but, "Does an incidence of wrongdoing rightfully condemn an unarmed man to death?"

After the Ferguson decision, I saw a lot of people posting about how the riots and looting were marks against the cause for Brown. After all, how does stealing or burning a cop car demonstrate that you are a rational person demanding rational things? I think that this perspective willfully forgets that everyone has a breaking point. That's what this post is meant to address.

I am a white person of privilege, and I recognize that, because of that status, there are things that I will never understand about what life is like for other people. I try to stretch myself by just spending some time each day thinking, if I didn't have a car, and still had to do these same tasks today, how would that change my life? If I did not have financial support from my parents to fall back on, how would that change my life? If I had gotten pregnant at 16, how would that have changed my life? If I lived in a community where pride was one of the most important things I had to cling to, how would that change me as a person? And so on. I think that through these exercises, I have gotten better at letting go of my worldview and seeing why other people might behave the way they do in situations where I would do something completely different. I encourage other people to do the same--it's free, and it's healthy.

So back to riots and looting. Imagine that you grew up knowing that, if you were in need and you called 911, the police might help you, but they also might profile you and think that you're the problem. By calling 911 for help, you would be taking a risk--and that's assuming they even showed up. There are plenty of high crime neighborhoods that are horribly under- or un-served by police.

Continuing that thought experiment, imagine that you were told growing up that there was an elaborate set of rules that you had to follow if you ever encountered a cop. Hands had to stay in plain sight; if you were driving, you should keep your license and registration out on the seat next to you, just in case. Always speak politely, even if the cop has stopped you for seemingly no reason: walking in a short skirt, driving while black, etc.

You followed these rules because you knew you had to in order to ensure your safety, but you knew that your white neighbors didn't have to go through the same charades.

Now, back to the white person's reality.  You're taught from a young age that police officers are heroes. You're told to call them if you ever need help. You're told to be respectful to them because they're great people who deserve that respect. You might break the law in small ways, but you know you'll pay a fine and go on your way. You feel safe and protected because you know that, should anything happen to you, you can call 911 and help will be on the way.

When you hear that there is a problem with cops killing unarmed black men, you pause. It's not that you doubt that it's a problem. Obviously people shouldn't kill people. It's just...what were those men doing? They weren't armed, but did they appear to be? Were they threatening the cops? Did they look threatening? Plus, black communities have more gun violence on average than white communities, right?, so it would be reasonable for a cop to think that there would be guns involved.

On the surface, these are all very rational thoughts. The thing is, implicit in these thoughts are a lot of assumptions. The biggest assumption is: These systems work.

This is where the title of my post comes from. I was thinking about how and why people supported Jim Crow laws, why men opposed women's suffrage, and generally why privileged groups (especially white people) have supported oppressive systems over time. It seems like it mainly comes down to an assumption that the system works and an issue of unwillingness of privileged groups to give up comfort.

For example, I assume that if a cop wrongly kills a civilian, he will be convicted and jailed. I assume that the justice system and the police system work properly so that these things happen a vast majority of the time. I am so secure in these assumptions, in fact, that I will cover my eyes and plug my ears and say "That's an exception!" every time a cop is acquitted or the killing fails to be reported at all. Why? Because it's not my community that's being effected. I still feel safe, because no one I know well is at risk, and I still have my 911 safety net.

I think this perspective is where a lot of people I know are coming from. I encourage these individuals to stop worrying so much about whether or not Michael Brown was an exemplary citizen--it just doesn't matter at this point. What does matter is what system you're supporting. It's time to think critically.

Engineering with Barbie: Two Steps Forward, Five Leaps Back

When I wrote my last post, I didn't have much of an idea of what this blog might consist of. I only knew that I kind of missed writing things. Yesterday, I made a commitment to Jeff (my boyfriend whose name will likely come up a lot on here because he's a pretty central character in my life) that I would start posting at least once a week. I read a lot of articles that I find interesting--often they're about feminism, or population growth, or poverty, or climate change, or totally unrelated things--and I have a lot to say about them, and I usually just don't say anything about them.

This blog is me, taking a stand for saying things when I have things to say! Isn't that cool? If you don't know me, maybe not. I don't know. Anyways, I just read something that I thought was awesomely terrible, and I thought that would be a great place to start.

Barbie.

When I was a kid, my mom wouldn't let me have Barbie dolls, and she was a mean and terrible person for it. They had the coolest clothes and accessories, and I didn't understand her rationale at all. She told me that she thought that Barbies promoted unrealistic ideas of what women's bodies should look like, but as a 5-year-old I had no idea what a woman's body should look like, so I was pretty lost by that logic.

As a 24-year-old feminist who has had a normal share of body issues (really, does any female get through adolescence without any? Honest question), I get where she was coming from. I think Barbie's proportions are ridiculous, and the pink-and-girly theme is over the top and obnoxious, and I hate the way it shamelessly caters to ONLY GIRLS, such that any boy who might be interested in the vast fashion options or other themed toy options associated with the line is quickly shamed. Still, I do remember how appealing the toys were when I was a child, and I try to remember how few of the insidious messages that they send were actually absorbed when I played with them at friends' houses. I try to keep things in perspective.

So when I saw (yet another) alarmist headline about how terrible and misogynistic this Barbie book is, I was expecting it to be a gross exaggeration. The book is called, after all, "I Can Be A Computer Engineer." That's pretty inspiring to young girls interested in pursuing STEM fields, right? The girly, popular idol can also be brainy and successful?

Okay! Pretty cool! She's making her own game! Granted, she's all in pink, in the kitchen, eating yogurt, but it's a great start. Way to go!

...Oh. I see.

But don't worry! It gets better! Right after this, she talks about how she always makes sure to back up her work. That necklace she's wearing (the pink heart, because that's what girls like) is actually a USB drive. She plugs is in...

...and it crashes her computer. Then she plugs it into her sister's computer, and it crashes hers. She goes to school and asks her teacher for advice, and then gets boys to help her carry out the instructions. THEN, she takes all the credit for having the advice work out. Steven and Brian save Barbie's and Skipper's computers, Barbie gets all the credit, Skipper gives a presentation about how much she admires Barbie as an older sister, and Barbie gets extra credit because her puppy game (that Steven and Brian made) turned out so well. 

I know, right?

Barbie put out an apology for this book because of all the scathing reviews it got. Here are a few of my favorites from Amazon:

This post is getting longer than I intended very quickly, so I'm going to try to wrap it up. Here are my main issues with this book:

1. Barbie, as portrayed in this book, absolutely cannot be a computer engineer, and shows no desire to be. She barely touches a computer. She does not apply herself in any way to computing. The title is misleading.
2. Barbie receives nothing but praise even though she bumbles, manipulates, and cheats her way through the book. She does nothing praiseworthy throughout the whole thing, but to a child reading the book, that would not come across at all. If I were four years old and reading this book, I would not identify that she had done anything wrong because no one reacts like she does anything wrong.
3. Women in the tech industry struggle every day with having their hard work and intellect ignored because of their female status. This book supports women being treated as intellectually inferior, less capable, and lacking in drive--as long as they are rewarded in the end for whatever product they stamp their name on. Given how many women work hard every day and are still treated like their efforts are worthless, this is maddening.
4. Is it really so important that EVERYTHING be pink?

That last point wasn't the most important; I just wanted to end on a lighter note. And with that, I leave you. Until next time.

Initiating a new blog is always awkward

Let's get it over with.

This is my third blog in...four years? The first was focused on my study abroad experience in Dakar, Senegal while I was a junior at Kalamazoo College. The second documented my internship two summers ago while I was working with a nonprofit organization called Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (try saying that five times fast) in Hazaribag, Jharkhand, India for three months.

Now I'm not doing anything so exotic. Or at least not yet. I'm embarking on a doctoral program in evaluation. It's a pretty cool program because it's interdisciplinary, so I can maintain my focus on international development while still learning the theory and practice of evaluation at the doctoral level. I am also fortunate enough to be funded through an associateship, so I have research opportunities that allow me to get some hands-on experience while I'm studying. This also means that my tuition is paid, I'm getting paid, and I get a cute little office that comes complete with an officemate who knows his way around much better than I do.

It's not unlikely that in the next few years I will get to travel overseas at least a few times to work on projects, so the "(Possibly Mundane)" part of the title of this blog might not *always* be the case. In the meantime, my life mostly consists of a lot of reading.

I'll see how well I do at keeping this blog updated before I share the link. I'm not ready to commit yet. :P